Channel Frederator Blog

Brad Mossman is a multi talented person of Awesome. Not only is he Nick Junior’s Wow Wow Wubbzy’s composer, he has also done work for Disney Channel’s Higglytown Heroes, Cartoon Network, Film Roman and WildBrain. He’s also a fine producer of music videos. As seen here on the video for the Figurines, “Back in the Day”

1. How did you come up with the idea for music video?
I’ve always wanted to get my sketchbook drawings moving….There’s an animation school near me here in Denmark called “The Animation Workshop” and they have this program called “Open Workshop” for outside artists to come in and do projects among the full time professors and students in an animation school environment. I thought it would be great to apply as a “Creative Director”. If you get in, they toss you a little bit of funding. I figured all this money would go to the animator I found to animate the script and storyboards I created.

The video is based upon the CD cover art I did for Figurines. I met them a couple of years ago and just loved their music and live performance. I asked them if I could send them T-shirt designs and when I did, they asked me if they could use one of them for their for their “Skeleton” CD cover which came out in 2004.

So… the animation idea came idea as I listened to the “Back In The Day” song over and over. The song is just gorgeous and it was no problem hearing it over and over as I wrote out ideas and as we animated! I wanted the CD cover image to be the final, ending frame of the video. The video itself is the story of how the character got to where (s)he is on the CD.

I had the great fortune of convincing Aaron Blecha to animate the project. He and I worked together a few years ago at Spazzco Animation in San Francisco with owner, Dana Muise (who Dan Meth knows and I think did some work for). I composed music for their animation and games and Aaron directed and animated there.

Aaron is in London at the moment and he travelled to Denmark last November to live at the animation school for a few weeks with me and the other Open Workshop folks to make our animation. He and I worked fantastically together and had such a great and memorable time. He’s a genius artist and animator so I was so flattered and grateful that he “allowed” me to direct him and tell him how I wanted things to look and feel. Of course, he offered amazing ideas and timed the images extremely precisely and effectively to the song as well.

2. Who are some of your influences?
I have lots of influences within both music and art. I’m constantly scouring music, images and animation.
I especially enjoy staying in tune and turning on to new stuff that comes my way as well as the work my artist friends create. My friends are the greatest inspiration to me of all.

3. What do you do when you get stuck creatively?
It depends how long the block is! But generally I’ll move my body. I go for a walk or a run. I call a friend too. Play with our cat “Goose”. Maybe cook a meal. I’m lucky because if I get stuck composing music, I’ll run to the pen and paper and draw and if I get stuck drawing, I’ll pick up the guitar.

4. How was it working with a band as opposed to your normal clients?
With Viacom, Nick Jr. and Disney, it’s composing music for animations. That’s basically me working on songs for Creative Directors who give their direction and notes. Then there’s a little back and forth with the networks if they have notes as well.

Working with Figurines was different from anything I’ve done because it was the first project which got my drawings moving, which was extremely challenging and ultimately rewarding.

I didn’t have much contact with the band because they had no artistic input to the project at all. It was self-funded by me. I met with them before I started to show them the script and storyboards and told them to just let me know if they didn’t want me to do it. No one objected, so I went forward. Their management liked it and even spent a little money to transfer the piece to digi-beta formats, which was helpful.

I had to take it seriously because the band is pretty popular in Denmark and I knew if it came out somewhat “pro” it would be broadcast on Danish national television. Fortunately it did get broadcast, which was really exciting. Aligning with a popular band has also resulted in alot of online views as well. The more popular the band gets, the more folks will see it.

5. What are you working on currently?
Currently, Dana Muise of Spazzco is animating my next project, which is a short piece of me and my parents talking together 14 years ago, which I caught on tape. I came up with three characters to represent us and I think it’s going to be a really lovely piece overall. Dana is another genius animator that I’m extremely lucky to know and collaborate with.

Other than that, I’m working on animation pitches with friends incorporating my songwriting and I’m drawing in my sketchbook.

It’s always a balance between the music and the drawing. I’m constantly going back and forth. These animation projects have been really amazing though and I’m looking forward to developing more opportunities to meet animators who can help me move my characters and script ideas. I’d love to put together a small team to make shorts. Sort of like a band but with us all working on basic, short line-drawing animations rather than making songs and playing in bars!

I’ve been posting my recent drawings at: http://bmossman.blogspot.com and with Bob Boyle and David Fremont at http://doodledorks.blogspot.com. My music site is at: http://bmossman.com

Thanks for the cool music video Brad. We can’t wait to see what you come up with next!!!
-Jeaux Janovsky